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Smarter, more reliable, more cost-effective, and above all, better for your business – those are the benefits of the best of new technology for Los Angeles distributors.
With everything that is currently offered, it is clear that only the new solutions that bring identifiable added value to your enterprise, your resellers, and market, or preferably both, should be let through. Here are six areas where new technology can help.
1. Increased Stock Turnover
Let’s start with an item dear to the hearts of all Los Angeles distributors. The more products you can ship and the less you have to hold in inventory, the better your bottom line will look. Smart software to manage your warehousing and your supply chain lets you win on all fronts. Use a cloud-based solution and you can offer secure access to business partners to help tune your stocks, deliveries and turnover even better.
2. Competitive Advantage
Who does not have competitors? However, even if they offer similar products, you can still get ahead with better reseller service (a CRM application), faster picking, packing and delivery (RFID tracking), and smarter sales communication (marketing and merchandising automation). In short, new technology helps you to run the best supply chain there is, and that is where you’ll make sustainable profits.
3. Reseller Loyalty
Show them how much you care by making it easy to order via e-commerce applications, online visibility into their order and account status, and smart logistics systems that handle returns as efficiently as deliveries.
4. Staff Engagement
Systems hold information, but people have the know-how. Your staff knows your business. They know how it works and what to do to fix things or make things run better. New technology such as mobile computing devices (smartphones and tablets) can improve the work environment. Online collaboration applications help communication, coordination, and ultimately staff satisfaction.
5. Cost Reduction
Did you know that servers in a traditional configuration may only be using 10 percent of their rated compute power? Virtualization can help boost that number significantly, and now ready-to-use private cloud solutions from major IT vendors can do even more. Alternatively, public cloud services and an enormous range of SaaS (Software as a Service) applications can bring capital costs down to practically zero while trimming operational costs too.
6. Enterprise Growth
With all the above, what other advantages could new technology bring to Los Angeles distributors? Company growth is one answer. The more technology can automate for you and the less you have to do manually, the more business you can do with both existing and new markets. IT automation programs can now run and monitor your systems and your networking, but also your inventory, your logistics, your billing and your security. If there are exceptions or problems, you see them immediately. Otherwise, automation makes sure that things run correctly, freeing you up to focus on increasing the real added value your distribution company brings to the market.
Which new technology has had the most positive impact for you recently? Share your experience with us in the Comments section below.
To follow up on the tips in this article, download your free guide, How COOs at Los Angeles Distributors and Manufacturers Get More Done: A Guide to Productivity, Data, Staffing, Delegation, and Making It Home for Dinner Most Nights.
